Battle of Passchendaele

Battle of Passchendaele

The Battle of Passchendaele claimed the lives of around half a million soldiers on both sides. It was the bloodiest battle of World War I and has become infamous not only for the scale of casualties, but also for the mud.

Between October 26 and November 7, 1917, the Canadian Corps suffered some 16,000 casualties in taking Passchendaele. The Battle of Passchendaele, along with the Battles of the Somme and Vimy, played an essential role in Canadian nation building.

Perhaps the battle’s most enduring epitaph is the phrase from one of Siegfried Sassoon’s poems: “I died in hell – They called it Passchendaele.”